Tema, Feb. 01, GNA- The management of the Ghana Textiles Manufacturing Company (GTMC), has retrenched 90 of the 245 staff, to enable the company reduce cost of production and be competitive on the market.

Mr Julius Atsu Dellor, Administrative Manager of GTMC, told the GNA on Wednesday at Tema that the redundancy exercise was carried out in accordance with the company's collective agreement so that no worker was affected unduly.

He said the affected workers received two months severance award plus payment of an amount based on the number of years in service with the company.

Mr Dellor dispelled speculation that the retrenched workers were asked to re-apply for employment and explained that after the exercise, some of them were re-engaged under the new Labour Law. He said the redundancy did not affect production as the company, adding that it had capacity to produce 14 million meters of textiles per annum.

Mr Dellor said the company now produced textiles only on order placed, to avoid running at a loss and to prevent the situation whereby a bulk of textiles would get stacked at the warehouse. He said last year, the GTMC produced 2.5 million meters of textiles, and has targeted a production of 2.8 million meters this year, with the company made a profit of 1.5 per cent in 2004 after paying tax.